The Italian Job
by Mission to Marzipan
Summary: It's all fun and games until someone decides to rob the bank you're in. AU without powers – there's no skeleton army coming to Nico's rescue when he's caught in the middle of a bank heist. Will he make it out alive? Who knows, but in the meantime he's got a certain redheaded fellow hostage to keep him company (read: drive him insane). Not Rachel/Nico; implied Solangelo
1. Chapter 1

Nico hated going to the bank.

Unfortunately, it was a necessary monster to slay every once in a while. Sometimes he had to cash a cheque, or pay a bill, and it was always the same. The teller would be bored, tapping away on their keyboard as they entered Nico's name and bank details, and then there'd be a pause where their eyes would widen and they'd look from him to the screen and back again several times.

Yes, that was his bank account. Yes, that was his current account balance. There'd be a particularly big shock in store if it was near the beginning of the month and his father had decided to deposit an allowance into his account.

Yup, he was twenty-five years old and still getting an allowance from his father. He knew how pathetic that made him sound, but his father had serious cash to burn – practically all the wealth in the world. It was the least he could do to shove some of it Nico's way, especially given their relationship was cold and frosty at best in most other ways that didn't involve a direct transaction. They might as well try to kindle some kind of spark in their father/son relationship.

So now here he was, in the line at the bank, with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his aviator jacket. He still had his sunglasses on from outside – he was hungover, okay, so sue him – and so not in the mood for being out of bed and in the world.

The bank was busy, which was weird because he thought everyone did their banking online these days. Who actually came into a bank anymore? Surely only dinosaurs like his father, who was practically millennia old, actually used stuff like cheques in this day and age? His dad probably just liked the idea of signing something and having that mean it pushed vast sums of money around just by invoking his name. That was the kind of guy he was.

Customers filled the teller windows and the line stretched both before and behind him. A TV on the wall behind the tellers played CNN. To his right, high windows set in the top of the wall allowed the midday sunlight to slant into the room, illuminating dust drifting high up near the ceiling.

Dark wood dominated the room, with polished teak everywhere. It made up the counters, the stands where you could fill out deposit slips, the desks and chairs where you could discuss your finances with the staff. A worn green paisley carpet covered the floor. Above him, stained glass panels hid the soft lighting bathing the room. Next to the entrance doors stood a uniformed security guard.

Nico's eyes finished roving over the bank and turned back to the front of the room as the tellers gradually dealt with the customers. He tapped his booted foot on the carpet and huffed a sigh. How long was this going to take? Maybe this was what the afterlife was like for people who deserved punishment. Just a constant line at the bank that never got smaller. Or maybe even the DMV. Except there'd probably be less screaming in hell.

The double doors burst open, banging off the walls. Nico turned to give one of his patented death stares. He had a killer hangover headache and the noise went straight through him, but what he saw chilled him to the bone. The glare died in his eyes; his breath hitched in his throat.

The security guard turned, hand on his gun, but before he could unholster his weapon he was beaten to the floor with an extendable riot baton. He crumpled, blood oozing from a gash on his forehead.

Four masked, armed men stormed into the bank, stepping over the guard. One sprayed automatic gunfire at the ceiling, shattering the stained glass into multicoloured raining shards. Nico threw his arm over his face; glass shrapnel snagged at the material of his jacket as it fell. Bulletholes riveted into the wooden panels of the walls, spitting splinters into the air. The TV took a direct hit, fizzled sparks and died.

Pandemonium. Suddenly it was all screaming, ducking, running.

Someone threw themselves at the emergency exit. The doors slammed outwards, setting off an alarm. A stampede surged towards the open escape route. People tripped over themselves and the furniture, tumbling to the floor.

Nico's legs finally stopped betraying him. He stumbled towards the fire exit, heart thudding, gunshots ringing in his ears. His whole body flooded with ice and fire at the same time, half paralysing him. His legs felt like lead, his extremities tingled.

"Get down! Everyone on the floor!"

More gunfire. The fire exit sign above the emergency door exploded into a spray of glass and sparks. Nico threw himself backwards, tripping over an overturned chair and slamming onto the floor. The blow forced the breath from his body. Someone stood on his leg, his outstretched hand.

"I SAID GET DOWN!"

Footsteps marched towards him. Someone grabbed him by the collar and dragged him backwards. Two of the gunmen yanked people away from the exit, while a third wrapped chains around the bars and padlocked the door closed.

Nico's sunglasses dangled from one ear. His mouth was dry. His elbow throbbed where it had smacked into the chair. He scrambled back towards the wall, still trying to catch his breath, pressing himself into the shadows and wishing they could swallow him whole. He swallowed hard, tracing every movement of the guns with wide eyes.

Next to him a woman with a lot of frizzy red hair ducked almost double, her mouth open and her face an ashen, aghast mask. Her hands were up as half-fists, shielding her head. The muzzle of one of the guns turned on her and she slumped back against the wall and slid to the floor, her breathing coming in fast gasps.

About half the bank had emptied out through the fire exit, but there were still plenty of people now locked in. The tellers ducked behind their desks. Customers cowered behind the dark wooden furniture, which had been knocked askance in the melee. The air was filled with a panicked hubbub; someone sobbed.

Well. At least the lines would be shorter now.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well," said the redhead, "this sucks."

Nico took off his sunglasses and shot her a scorching side-eye as he tucked them into the inside pocket of his jacket. "Really? Because I was just thinking how this was the cherry on my fucking sundae."

"Ooh, sarcasm. I like." She scooted up closer to Nico and smiled at him.

Nico, who had personal space issues at the best of times, let alone when there was a chance someone was going to blow his brains out, shuffled away from her. There was something very familiar about her that he couldn't quite place, like a back itch he was desperate to scratch but was unable to reach. That still didn't mean he wanted her so damn close to him, though, so he shot her a warning glare when she started moving towards him again. It failed and soon they were sat hip to hip.

"Are you trying to get on my lap?" he demanded.

The redhead's smile widened. "Why, are you offering?"

"Don't you think there are more pressing matters to deal with right now than coming on to me? Guns, robbers, hostage situation? Ringing any bells?"

She snorted. "Coming on to you? Please. Okay, so the dark hair thing I like. I can get on board with that. But the rest of it? You're way to skinny and you look like you'd burn under a 40 watt bulb. Can you imagine going on vacation together with our complexions? It would be a battle over who could reach the factor 50 fastest." She paused. "Wow, that was hard to say."

Nico blinked. "Well, that was rude."

"Was it rude or was it just honest?" she asked, cocking her head to one side as if considering the question herself. "I know what I like and I'm too old to change. So sue me. Besides, something tells me you don't want me coming on to you."

"Well, at least you're right about something," Nico muttered.

Two of the armed men were rounding up the rest of the hostages, dragging them over to the wall he and the redhead were leaning against. The other two had their guns levied at one of the tellers; even from across the room, Nico could see her trembling as she shoved cash into duffle bags.

Vehicles screeched to a halt outside the bank. The room lit up with flares of blue and red. More sirens approached in the distance, wailing their way towards the bank. Nico had a sinking feeling that this was going to get ugly and quickly; the raid had obviously been meticulously planned and that probably included contingency plans for the likely interference from the police. No such plans, at least in Nico's head, would ever turn out well for hostages.

"I'm Rachel, by the way."

Nico turned back to her, amazed she was still talking. He knew he should be feeling a lot more scared than he did right now, but it was hard to get worked up when you had someone chewing your freaking ear off with inane babble. "Hi Rachel. You realise you've picked a bizarre time to make friends, right?"

"We could be here for a while," she said with a shrug. "Might as well try and get something out of it."

Nico took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out again, rubbing at his eyes with his fingers. He still had that headache and would kill for a couple of aspirin, although perhaps that was unfortunate terminology to use given the current circumstances.

"You are crazy. It's like you don't even realise how screwed we are," he hissed, jerking his head over to the middle of room. "We are hostages in an _actual_ bank robbery. This is really happening."

Rachel yawned. "Yeah, thanks for the update. But we're not going to get anywhere if we start panicking, are we? So how about we play a game?"

"Does this game involve being quiet?"

Rachel looked at him, twisted her mouth in thought, and then began, "I spy with my little–"

"Finish that sentence and I swear I will get them to shoot you."

Rachel huffed a sigh. "Fine. Be dull. What's your name, anyway?"

"Nico," he said, shimmying out of his jacket so he could attempt to inspect his elbow, which still throbbed where he'd taken a tumble over the chair. "Not that we're probably going to be alive for long enough to get to know each other."

"Are you always such a pessimist?"

"Are you always so annoying?" Nico shot back, scowling at the elbow he couldn't quite see no matter which way he contorted his arm.

Suddenly, Rachel's hand shot out and grabbed Nico's wrist, yanking his arm to full extension. "That's a five thousand dollar watch," she said, gaping at it as she twisted his arm so the face of his watch glinted in the light.

Nico scowled at her and snatched his arm back, shrugging his jacket back on and pulling his sleeve down over it. "What? What is wrong with you. You actually are crazy. Seriously, who are you?"

"Someone who knows a five thousand dollar watch when she sees one," Rachel said triumphantly, tilting her chin up. "So what is it? Rich parents or rich girlfriend?"

"It could be a fake," Nico said. "Did you ever consider that, huh?"

"But it's not, is it?" Rachel pressed. "Fine, if you won't tell me then I'm guessing rich parents. You're too young to have a seriously rich girlfriend and dressed like that you're not exactly going to be knee-deep in women." She paused. "Why do you dress like that if you've got money, anyway?"

"I'm curious to know when this became any of your business," Nico said. "And I dress just fine, thank you. Even if I was planning to take fashion tips, I'd take it from someone who hadn't doodled on their own jeans. Also, FYI, even if what you're saying were true, it would be rich parent. Singular. My mom died when I was seven."

"That sucks, I'm sorry," Rachel said. She paused. "Want to trade for my mother? She's all yours, no charge."

"Is she anything like you?"

"Gods no."

"Well in that case, I'll consider it."

Rachel snorted and reached back to tie her hair into a ponytail. Nico caught sight of something winking on her wrist and it was his turn to grab at her arm.

"What the hell is this? You're giving me shit for my watch and you've got the freaking crown jewels dangling off your arm? Tiffany's. Cluster diamonds and white gold. Easily fifteen grand."

Rachel looked down at her wrist and wrinkled her nose. "Rich parents, before you ask. I'm here to put it in our safety deposit box." She looked at her wrist, glanced up at the bank robbers, then flipped her arm over and unclasped the bracelet, shoving it down the side of one of her shoes.

"Don't forget the earrings," Nico said in a singsong voice, a half smile playing across his face. "I've just realised you're wearing five grand in each ear, too."

Rachel cursed and reached up to her ears, unfastening the huge diamond-encrusted studs. "They're not mine before you give me any shit," she said, shoving those down inside her other shoe. "They're my mother's. She asked me to put them in the safety deposit box and the only way I could remember to do it is feeling them trying to yank my earlobes off. I buy all my earrings at Claire's."

"Sure," Nico said with a smirk.

"It's true. They're probably conflict diamonds. There's no way you'd see my dead in them normally. How do you know so much about jewellery, anyway?"

"From around," Nico said evasively, shrugging one shoulder. "Plus my mom had some pieces."

A look of realisation dawned across Rachel's face. "Ooooh. I get it. I take that whole comment about you not being knee deep in women back. You're gay."

Nico spluttered. "Okay, where do I even start with this? You can't just go around accusing people of being gay because they know about jewellery. Secondly–"

"It's true, though, isn't it?"

Nico glared at her. The tips of his ears had gone red. "Secondly–"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it's none of my business. You're big with things not being my business, aren't you?"

"No more than any normal sane person?"

"Fine," Rachel said, pointing down at her feet. "Shoes. Go."

Nico scoffed. "Now you're just bordering on offensive. Not every gay man–"

Rachel fluttered her eyelashes and kicked her shoes up into Nico's lap, smiling sweetly enough to put a diabetic into a coma.

Nico shoved Rachel's feet out of the way and sighed. "Fine. I'm sitting here wondering why a woman dripping in Cartier is wearing shoes from Payless."

"Ha!" Rachel clapped her hands together, completely oblivious to the fact that guns had turned in their direction.

Nico yanked her applauding hands down. "Are you trying to get us shot?"

"No, I'm just pleased I have somewhere to share this with. Serious hottie, three o' clock."

Nico frowned; he'd come face to face with one of the robbers. "Your kink is a man in a ski mask?"

"Not that three o' clock, _my_ three o' clock."

"They're the _same three o' clock!_ "

Rachel huffed a sigh and grabbed his head, swivelling it in the right direction.

"This isn't three o' clock," Nico deadpanned. "Plus, you realise you've felt me up more in the past twenty minutes than possibly anyone ever."

"Don't be such a baby. Human contact is good for you. Now tell me what you think. If you don't agree that he is smoking hot then I am revoking your gay card."

The guy in question had jet black hair like Nico's but shorter and messy, like he'd just rolled in off the beach. His eyes were sea-green and he had a deep tan. His fists were balled at his sides and his eyes were boring into the gunmen, almost as if he was planning on taking them all on at once.

"He is not a piece of meat," Nico said. "But fine. He has a certain… aesthetic appeal."

Rachel let go of his head to tuck her hands into her hips. "'Aesthetic appeal'? Are you some kind of robot? I would climb him like a tree."

"Wow. I really don't have a reply to that apart from throwing up in my mouth, so I'm just going to change the subject. What do your parents do for you to be wandering around like you just rolled around in the Queen's jewellery box?"

"My mother? As little as possible," Rachel said, still staring over at the mystery hot guy. "Unless you can count attending galas and charity benefits and shopping as an occupation. My dad is in real estate, though. He mostly flattens pristine wilderness and turns it into strip malls."

Nico snapped his fingers. "Yes! You're Rachel Dare. I _knew_ I'd seen you somewhere before. Your dad is Warren Dare. You're all over Page Six."

Rachel turned to him, her face darkening for the first time since she'd started speaking to Nico, as if being splashed across the tabloids was somehow worse than being stuck in a room with four machine guns. "Not my choice," she ground out, her voice bitter. "Being followed around by photographers waiting for you to fall on your ass so they can get an up-skirt shot is all fun and games, let me tell you."

"Yeah, since my mom died my dad hasn't really been into the high society stuff. He's pretty much been a recluse, hiding out in the dark. So I never had to do any of that crap."

"Lucky you. What does he do?"

Nico sighed. "What doesn't he do? He's heavily into mining precious stones and metals. He has a ton of construction and tunnelling contracts. He's big into private security. Muscle for hire, you know? Mostly though he just spends his time ruling over a bunch of underlings who follow him around like zombies. Oh, and he owns a record label in LA."

"What's the record label?"

"DOA Recording Studios."

Rachel punched him in the shoulder. "Shut up. Your dad is Henry Dees? Founder and CEO of H. Dees Inc.? He is like the god of all wealth." She paused. "Wait, what the hell kind of name is Nico Dees?"

Nico rubbed his arm. "Ow. First of all, you don't just go around hitting people. Use your words. Secondly, my parents never got married. When they got together, it caused this huge rift on my dad's side of the family so I use my mom's name: di Angelo."

"Families, right?"

"Yeah," Nico said. "You have no idea."


	3. Chapter 3

Somewhere deep inside the bank behind the counter a phone peeled endlessly. None of the masked men paid it any attention.

If Nico's TV and movie habit had taught him anything, it was that the cops were probably trying to get in touch with the bank to negotiate some way out of the situation.

Nico tried not to think about the fact that the not answering probably meant that negotiation for hostage release probably wasn't on the table.

"Will someone answer that damn phone?" Rachel growled, as if she'd read Nico's mind. She made to get up, as if he was going to answer it herself, but Nico balked and dragged her back down to the floor. "What? It's driving me _insane_!"

"Driving you insane? That was presumably a very short Uber ride given you were just about to talk into a hail of bullets because you can't deal with a ringing phone," Nico hissed, letting go of Rachel's arm but hovering his hand over it so he could grab her again if necessary.

"Hilarious," Rachel said, waving off his hand. She paused, wrapping a strand of hair around her finger, oblivious to the chaos this was wreaking on her already-massive hair. "Gods above I cannot stop staring at that guy," she eventually hissed, nudging Nico far too hard in the ribs. "Do you think I should get his number?"

"Are you seriously thinking about your sex life at a time like this?" Nico demanded, blinking at her. "Anyway, didn't I read on Page Six that you got married?" He checked Rachel's ring finger but aside from a chewed home manicure it was empty — not even a tan line.

Rachel exhaled loudly through her nose, tugging yet-harder on the strand of hair. "That's a sore point."

"Divorced, huh?"

Rachel sighed, finally releasing her hair. It pinged out from her head at a right angle, looking like a coiled viper ready to spring. "No, thank god. Do you know how long we would have been tied up in the courts screaming about money if the marriage had stuck and I'd ended it?"

Nico cocked his head to one side. "So… you're telling me you're not divorced but not married. Is this some kind of riddle? Do you walk on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening?"

"No, fine. Look, it's quite simple. He was the son of a Greek shipping magnate, I'm the heiress to a real estate empire. What more can I say?"

"Okay, Avril," Nico muttered, his mouth quirking up at the corners.

"What did you say?" Rachel asked.

"Nothing."

"Oh. Well, anyway, my mother picked him out for me. But you know it wasn't _completely_ an arranged marriage that Austen would have gone nuts over. It wasn't a total mismatch. At the start, anyway. We dated for quite a while before getting engaged. He was kinda sweet. A bit obsessed with his red Maserati, but kind of sweet. He wrote me all these terrible haikus."

"So why'd you break it off?" Nico asked, inwardly hating that he was actually getting into the story. He wasn't normally one for spilled tea, but it was distracting him from imminent death at the hands of an assault rifle so there was that.

"Fine, picture it: I'm at the altar. and I'm standing there in full white dress and veil," Rachel said. "The priest is blah blah blahing and suddenly I'm like oh fuck I am making the biggest mistake of my life, so I said I needed the bathroom… Cut to me crawling out of the ladies' room window in full paparazzi glare shredding this custom made ten thousand dollar Vera Wang."

"And they said the gays were going to ruin the sanctity of marriage," Nico said, grinning as he shook his head.

"Weren't you listening?" Rachel demanded. "I said I wasn't technically married. It was a whole thing. Lots of attorneys. But we finally worked out that I wasn't actually married to him. Two more lines from the priest though and it would have been a whole different story."

"And wait, you spent _ten thousand dollars_ on a wedding dress? You? You of the Payless shoes?"

Rachel grimaced. "I know, it's awful. But my mother got into it and before I knew it the assistants were giving me champagne and then suddenly she'd spent all that money and it seemed like I couldn't give it back. You should have seen it though. It was so pretty."

"Is that why you want to get that hot guy's number? My guess is you've been single ever since?"

Rachel nodded. "Oh yeah. I've been on a man cleanse ever since the wedding. Except I think I've left it too long to get back on the horse… I swear I can feel my virginity growing back, you know?"

Nico's face creased in disgust. "Uh, no, I don't know. And thanks for that by the way."

"De nada. Now, how long are we going to be hostages anyway? Because I have a tiny bladder."

"Again, thanks for that. Overshare much? Are you sure it was you who ran away from the wedding?"

Rachel snorted. "Oh yeah. Believe me, I ran. I had to take off the stupid heels but I ran. There are so many pictures of me shredding my train on the window as I escaped. I actually got one framed but my mother had the maid throw it out. I don't think she knows where garbage goes…" She paused. "So, tell me. What's it like being the son of Harry Dees?"

"What's it like being the daughter of Warren Dare?" Nico countered, wrinkling his nose at the question.

"Touché," Rachel admitted. "Although seriously. You've not said anything about you. What's your deal? What makes you tick?"

"I like long walks on the beach and sitting quietly and therefore not getting shot for talking in hostage situations," Nico said in a low voice as one of the robbers walked by, finger poised on the trigger of his rifle.

"Lame," Rachel said, rolling her eyes. "But fine. I mean, we can always go back to I Spy? I spy—"

"My mom died when I was eight," Nico said immediately. "Then my sister was killed in a car crash a few years later."

Rachel gasped, feeling awful for bringing it up. "I'm so sorry."

Nico's throat worked. No matter how long it had been, every time he opened up the old wounds they stung. "It was a long time ago."

"Still…"

"I'm fine," Nico dismissed abruptly. "Anyway, my dad went mad with grief for a while. He sold our apartment because it reminded him of mom, I guess, and we bounced around all these different hotels for a few years. It felt like one giant hotel that I never left by the end of it. He was practically a recluse. Then one day he comes in to introduce me to this _woman_ he'd met and apparently he'd whisked her off and married her. Just out of the blue. So suddenly I have a stepmom who hates me, by the way. She treats me like I'm a weed in her garden she wants to spray with herbicide."

"Well that sucks. Nico, I'm—"

"I didn't tell you the story for pity," Nico cut in with. "I told you it to shut you up so we don't get shot."

Rachel let it go for a while in the longest period of silence she'd managed since they'd met, leaving Nico's eyes free to rove around the bank. There was a gunman covering the door with the security guard's gun tucked into the back of his pants. Another had his gun trained on them and the rest of the hostages. The other two had disappeared down to the vault.

"What are you thinking?" Rachel asked.

"They're ignoring the cops," Nico said. The red and blue flashing lights had intensified as they'd been speaking. Above them, a helicopter thundered. They were surrounded by police yet the robbers didn't care.

"So? They're robbing a freaking bank. As if anyone actually does this outside of a movie, but whatever. My point is that I don't think they're particularly good at listening to the cops, you know?"

"Yeah, but shouldn't they be negotiating some way out of this? I mean, what's their endgame here?"

"Oh, right." Rachel twisted her mouth in thought. "Probably nothing good, huh?"

"Not for us, anyway."

Rachel let that sombre note sink in for all of five seconds before taking a breath to speak again. "You know, this isn't how I thought I'd die. I always guessed that it would be at the controls of a helicopter plummeting out of the sky."

"You fly helicopters?"

"What? No. Of course not. It's plummeting out of control because the pilot is asleep and I can't wake him up."

Nico raised his eyebrows and let them sink again tiredly. "That's… oddly specific."

Rachel nodded. "Oh yeah, didn't I tell you? I'm a little bit psychic."

Nico rubbed his temples. The headache had just redoubled. "You're…" He stopped, letting that hang in the air. He couldn't bring himself to repeat it.

"Don't mock me, it's true."

Nico shook his head vigorously. "Nuh-uh. No, you can't just drop the fact that you're _psychic_ and not expect to be mocked. You're not going to get away with that."

"Look, sometimes I know things are going to happen before they actually happen. I can't explain it. It's like déjà vu except it's not that I've seen it before I've seen it… after. But also before the after. You with me?"

Nico's headache thrummed in his temple as he tried to decrypt what she'd just said. Fearing his head was about to explode, he gave up trying. "What about that makes sense? I'm pretty sure that was word salad."

"Of course you wouldn't understand," Rachel sniffed, flipping hair behind her shoulder.

"Why wouldn't I understand? Because I have a working bullshit detector?"

"It's your aura," Rachel explained, as if this should be obvious. "It's all wrong for this kind of thing. I mean, it's practically black."

Nico sputtered. "My aura is black? What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're not going to be in touch with anything psychic. In fact, you might as well be a giant psychic cockblock."

"Fine," Nico said, trying not to be offended by her remark by reminding himself that auras weren't, you know, a thing. "Then I want lottery numbers. Now."

Rachel snorted. "I don't do _lottery numbers_ ," she scoffed, looking deeply offended. "Besides, don't you have enough money?"

"Fine. Say you are a walking fortune cookie. What does it do if not provide lottery numbers?"

"Honestly? It's mostly prophecies. Like today." She shook her head. "I just knew it was going to be a bad day. I could feel it in my bones."

"You knew you were going to become a hostage in a bank robbery and you actually got your ass out of bed and came in here anyway?"

"It's not for me to ignore the will of the universe," Rachel said with a shrug. "I just go where I'm needed."

"You're not needed," Nico deadpanned. "In fact, please leave."

"Can't. They chained the door shut."

"Right," Nico said. "So they did. I really fucking hate these guys."


End file.
